The Eldridge Takes Cocktails to $26

Share

In case you don’t agree with Grub Street’s motto, “Go Hom or Go Home,” and Melissa Hom’s shots of the Eldridge weren’t enough, Matt Levine sends us some of his own — along with a selection from the cocktail menu — now that the space is complete. A perfect excuse to bust out our new slideshow format! Shield your eyes, dear readers: Drink prices blow Rose Bar’s out of the water at $26, but Levine tells us the markup isn’t arbitrary — a box of edible gold flakes costs him $50, and he was generous enough to give away 40 free shots the other night. Plus, there’s no pressure to buy a bottle (or even one of the buckets of beer on offer!). And aside from the much-ballyhooed Rosé Armand de Brignac Champagne wall and some apparently hard-to-come-by Pernod decanters (used for tableside absinthe service), Levine says he’s been turning down liquor-company sponsorships.

Rose Bar mixologist Charlotte Voisey’s cocktails are good — the Ludlow did indeed taste like a mango Creamsicle as promised by our female bartender. (Er, butler — wait a sec, aren’t butlers supposed to be dudes?) But given that they’re so much pricier than Milk & Honey’s down the block, they’re going to have to be paired with more than just chocolates. We’ll see if Naeem Delbridge (along with his alternate doorman, a hulking novice who goes by the name of Chrome) can bring the scene. As for those membership cards, Levine insists he hasn’t sent them out, though we’ve heard they’re circulating — maybe people are confusing them with Levine’s wooden (yes, wooden) business card. Meanwhile, the place has already turned away one would-be patron — a book collector who spotted a certain tome in the window that he had spent 25 years looking for. Sorry, buddy, not tonight.